Houston’s United Orthodox Synagogues Triumphs with Community-Based Vaccination Effort
On Monday, Gail Stalarow of Houston, TX received a text from an unknown number in a group chat a friend of hers had started.
“Alan Hoffman just called and said there are 850 shots at Methodist that need to be given out before noon today,” the text stated. It was 9:57 a.m.
After temperatures began to drop in Houston as freezing rain and sleet took hold of the city on February 15, Houston Methodist Hospital canceled vaccine appointments for that day and the following to keep locals off the now-dangerous, icy roads. But due to a fluctuation in the freezers that held the county's supply of usable vaccines, hundreds of first doses of the Moderna vaccine would go to waste if higher-ups at the hospital didn’t act fast.
Similar vaccine gold rushes have occurred across the country.
“I had...